Pulsing Metal Wheels

The sky washed sunset from her eyes,
with earth and fireflies pitching her
toward wanting to be anywhere else
but here, on the crossroads
where a growing dusk had already
slipped behind the passing trees
and disappearing shoreline.

She left dissonance when prayers scaled
the footbridge speeding distance over
the copper roof of her runaway train.
There she held, small by the force
of universal elision, a thin pale snake
squatting in its own skin like a reel
of frozen snow writhed on the pulsing
metal wheels.

Beyond, the yellowing moonlight
tore at its halcyon hair,
letting it whisper of old ghostly tales
as the thousand earthling bells jarred
the utterance of a girl in delirium.